[Minorcompositions] Cosmonauts of the Future: Book on Scandinavian Situationists Released

[Minor Compositions]

First ever English-language anthology of the Scandinavian Situationists

*Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in 
Scandinavia and Elsewhere*
Edited by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen & Jakob Jakobsen

This is the first ever English-language anthology collecting texts and 
documents from the still little-known Scandinavian part of the 
Situationist movement. The book covers over three decades of writing, 
from Asger Jorn’s Luck and Chance published in 1953, to the statements 
of the Situationist Antinational set up by Jens Jørgen Thorsen and J.V. 
Martin in 1974. The writings collected gravitate around the year 1962 
when the Situationist movement went through it’s most dynamic and 
critical moments, and the disagreements about the relationship between 
art and politics came to a culmination, resulting in exclusions and the 
split of the Situationist International.

The Situationists did not win, and the almost forgotten Scandinavian 
fractions even less so. The book broadens the understanding of the 
Situationist movement by bringing into view the wild and unruly 
activities of the Scandinavian fractions of the organisation and the 
more artistic, experimental, and actionist attitude that characterised 
them. They did, nevertheless, constitute a decisive break with the 
ruling socio-economic order through their project of bringing into being 
new forms of life. Only an analysis of the multifaceted and often 
contradictory Situationist revolution will allow us to break away from 
the dull contemplation of yet another document of Debord’s archive or 
yet another drawing by Jorn. There is a lot to be learned from the 
history of revolutionary failure. It is along these lines that this book 
points forward beyond the crisis-ridden capitalist order that survives 
today.

Texts by: Asger Jorn, Jørgen Nash, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, Bauhaus 
Situationniste, Jacqueline de Jong, Gordon Fazakerley, Gruppe SPUR, 
Dieter Kunzelman, J.V. Martin, and Guy Debord.
Translated by: Peter Shield, James Manley, Anja Buchele, Matthew Hyland, 
Fabian Tompsett, and Jakob Jakobsen.

Bio: Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen is an art historian and political theorist. 
He is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and has 
published books and articles on the revolutionary tradition and modern 
art. Jakob Jakobsen is an artist and political organizer. He ran the 
Copenhagen Free University, cofounded the artist run TV station tvtv and 
has participated in exhibitions all over the world.

PDF available freely online: http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=666

-- 
Minor Compositions is a series of interventions
& provocations drawing from autonomous politics,
avant-garde aesthetics, and the
revolutions of everyday life.

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